As our friends over at Climbing Narc noted, "While the interpersonal relationships of climbers is not normally appropriate for discussion on this blog, Beth and Tommy had built a pretty powerful brand around their being a climbing couple so the fact that they are no longer together seems like “news”. " But more importantly for GoBlog, it seems like the entry of two hot climbing ladies back into the dating pool has got the hormones running of quite a few lonely climbing dorks and it's driving mad traffic to the site. Over 75 people a day looking for information on these divorces. We call that newsworthy, at least in the sad fantasy lives of hundreds of climbers around the world. That's the only thing we can think of when we look at our search logs and scratch our heads at the sheer volume of traffic the words "beth rodden divorce" and "step davis divorce" drive to the site. So naturally we were curious what Google had to say as a gut check, so we pulled the numbers from their the Ad Words Keyword Selector tool. Here's the data they gave:

Phrase	Google Global Monthly Search Volume
steph davis divorce	46
beth rodden divorce	58

Looking through our logs, we'll have to say this is just directional and its underestimating the query volume by a large magnitude, because we see over 50 visitors a day alone searching for information on Beth Rodden's divorce. Less from Steph Davis. It's truly bizarre. Are the guys, and you have to assume it's 99% guys doing these searches, sitting in front of their computers going, "She's so hot, now I have a chance at her. Let me just confirm she's divorced and it's on!" And for that matter, why are they not searching Step Davis as often? Is she not as desirable as Beth when it comes to climbing dork fantasies hierarchy? You could also slice and dice this data and get anonymous demographic data. Like some lonely guy from Yale searched "tommy caldwell and beth rodden divorce" during his lunch hour today and a guy from Seattle searched "beth rodden divorce". Maybe we should put the data together and give it to Beth so she can avoid the towns with high rates of stalkers/searchers. And just to be honest, it's not just the hot climbing lady celebrities that get all this attention. People are always Googling "Chris Sharma girlfriend" to see if he's single. Because, you know, they have a shot if he is...Internet. Truly a weird and scary place.

We tend toward hyperbole and humor here at GoBlog, because it helps distract readers from the bad writing and lack of substance we generally provide. Yet, strangely, we're one of the largest outdoor blogs around, so what does that say about you, gentle readers? But we digress. If you read about the world's most expensive ski boots we posted about a few weeks ago, and decided you must have a pair, why not add a pair of the world's lightest powder skis to your shopping list? Weighing in at 2000 grams (4.3lbs) for a pair of 175s, the Black Powder aim to be the GoBlog of mountaineering skis: fast, light, good in the sack on the mountain. Wooo. From their press release:

• Is ultra-light so that the energy saved on the way up leaves you the strength to enjoy the descent
• Is not too long in order to facilitate kick turns while climbing, to be maneuverable during the descent and to move easily around obstacles (narrow corridors, trees)
• Its width at the waist is compatible with all crampons
• The width at the tip allows easy lift off of powder, while remaining reasonably narrow to break trail on the way up

How did they accomplish this feat of engineering marvel? Again, we defer to their press release:

The BLACK POWDER is a ski with a "partial core" (AlpControl patent) which is shorter than the ski, so that the upper and lower layers of carbon sandwich come together to form carbon/epoxy composite monoblocs at the tail and spatula. Because a ski should remain flexible, we ruled out fibers too rigid (high modulus) and instead selected the strongest "high tensile" fiber: the Toray T700S.

The T700S is one of the rare fibers in the world with a rate of elongation before break well above 2%, ensuring a high tolerance to shock.

The catch is you need to use their binding it appears, the Mountain Spring, which secure your plastics to the skis. Alright, enough shop talk. Suffice it to say they were a finalist for an ISPO this year. Read about them yourself on the AlpsControl website. Download their the Black Powder techncial spec doc and press release here (pdf).

Bit of old news, but the Banff Mountain Photography Winners were announced earlier this month. We never got around to posting about it because we're lazy. That's the Grand Prize winner above from Nathalie Daoust. You can see all the other winners on the Banff Centre site.

Sound familiar?

The wildlife biologist Lynn Rogers had logged thousands of hours studying North America's black bears. He had shot them with tranquilisers before fitting them with ear tags or radio collars. He had drawn their blood and mapped their DNA. And he had tracked their movements with pins on maps.

But none of that had allowed him to really know the creatures. When he did get close to a bear in the wild the animal was usually terrified, caught in a live trap in the woods.

Rogers eventually realised he couldn't hope to know bears unless he won their trust. And so he abandoned scientific detachment and took the daring and controversial step of forming relationships with his study animals, using food to gain acceptance among an extended bear family inMinnesota.

Gaining the trust of the bears has given him a close-up insight into their behaviour and social organisation as well as allowing Rogers to explode myths about them. Contrary to popular belief, for example, he contends that the bears are not violent and do not like honey.

What's the over under on this guy? At least he picked black bears, so he's got that going for him. Via Guardian UK.